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You are here: Home / Banksta, banksta

Banksta, banksta

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This sounds like a bad Law & Order episode waiting to happen:

I called Goldman Sachs spokesman Lucas van Praag to ask whether it’s true that Goldman partners feel they need handguns to protect themselves from the angry proletariat. He didn’t call me back. The New York Police Department has told me that “as a preliminary matter” it believes some of the bankers I inquired about do have pistol permits. The NYPD also said it will be a while before it can name names.

[….]

No, talk of Goldman and guns plays right into the way Wall- Streeters like to think of themselves. Even those who were bailed out believe they are tough, macho Clint Eastwoods of the financial frontier, protecting the fistful of dollars in one hand with the Glock in the other. The last thing they want is to be so reasonably paid that the peasants have no interest in lynching them.

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40Comments

  2. 2.

    John Cole

    How times have changed. I liked it better when these fuckers threw themselves off of buildings. Now, they feel no shame and won’t do that, and instead want to pop a cap in someone.

  3. 3.

    cynickal

    These guys are just handing me reasons by the bucket full to buy the purdy new Glock .45 I’ve been drooling over for years.

  4. 4.

    calipygian

    The last thing they want is to be so reasonably paid that the peasants have no interest in lynching them.

    I have no interest in lynching them. However, I’m not against crazy gluing them by the face to the Wall Street bull’s testicles and having random passersby kick the shit out of them.

    I think if we picked one banker at random per week for that kind of treatment, it would get the attention of the rest of those fuckers.

  6. 6.

    Mark S.

    Damn, it feels good to be a banksta . . .

    I wonder if it ever occurs to the teabaggers that almost everything they yammer for helps assholes like Goldman Sacks. I mean, of course they don’t, but geez, has there ever been a more textbook example of useful idiots?

  7. 7.

    MattR

    @John Cole:

    How times have changed. I liked it better when these fuckers threw themselves off of buildings. Now, they feel no shame and won’t do that, and instead want to pop a cap in someone.

    It was not shame that cuased them to throw themselves out of windows in the past. It was the fact that they were gambling with their own money. Why would you bother to jump off abuilding when you are still getting a 6 or 7 figure bonus every year?

  9. 9.

    beltane

    I hate to break it to these a-holes, but a pistol is no match against an angry, well-armed mob, or even a not so well armed mob. If it comes down to firepower, they’re no match against most of the plebes they’ve been shitting on. What they need to do is finance their own personal militia, pay them whatever they demand, and do whatever it takes to make them happy. Mercenaries have a nasty habit of turning on their employers whenever a better offer comes along.

  10. 10.

    jeffreyw

    I sent them all flyers from my new personal protection agency-“the E Tu, Brutus Corp, LLD”. Alas, no interest so far.

  11. 11.

    beltane

    @Mark S.: The day will come (probably not in my lifetime) when the rednecks finally turn off Fox and figure out that it’s the bankers who have been screwing them over all these years. Not the gays, blacks, Latinos, ACORN, teachers, feminists, atheists, hippies, or any other usual target, but the bankers.

    That will be some interesting viewing.

  12. 12.

    gizmo

    After demonstrating the monumental incompetence that led this nation into fiscal crisis, I wouldn’t trust those fools at Goldman with a gun. If they can’t properly assess the huge risk that they exposed everyone to, they probably can’t shoot straight, either. Thus, they would subject us all to even more collateral damage.

  13. 13.

    The Moar You Know

    The only bright spot I can see in this story is that thanks to the obsessive, crazed efforts of the NRA throughout the years, I can afford a pistol just as nice as any banker.

    And through the obsessive, crazed efforts of the bankers, I have a lot less to lose.

  14. 14.

    kommrade reproductive vigor

    I hate to break it to these a-holes, but a pistol is no match against an angry, well-armed mob, or even a not so well armed mob.

    Or one guy with better aim.

    Personally, I think it’s more bedwetting. “Ooo, look, I’m so scared for my life I had to buy a gun.”

  15. 15.

    Xenos

    It has been a while since we had bomb-throwing anarchists going after the rich and connected. While I would not consider it to be a good thing to see such violence, I would certainly expect it in a society where people have their livelihoods destroyed, their health insurance cut off, and their children dying in foreign wars after joining the armed forces under financial duress.

    Letting people die to generate profits creates a lot of very unhappy people. I doubt we would get many suicide bombers, but we could certainly get a few people willing to do some very unpleasant things to make a point.

  17. 17.

    Jager

    I used to work for a hard core, old school, Italian American business man. One afternoon, one of our bankers, a flip MBA type tough guy (smoked Camels, swore a blue streak, etc) thought he could push the old man around, he took a couple of shots and the old man looked him in the eye and said “look you little shit, in the neighborhood I grew up in, an Italian boy had two career choices, the priesthood or the mob…I took a different path, but I think you know which one I’d be good at, so don’t fuck with me, understand!” The investment banker shut the fuck up!

  18. 18.

    Zifnab

    @The Moar You Know: That’s ok, because with the way we’ve been privatizing all the prisons, some states would love nothing more than to throw you and everyone within a mile of you in lock-up just for good measure.

    Gun Society + Plutocracy + Privatized Prison = Fun for Everyone!

  19. 19.

    Just Some Fuckhead

    Maybe they’re getting the guns to blow their own brains out? Okay, who’s being naive now?! Me!

  21. 21.

    Wile E. Quixote

    @cynickal

    These guys are just handing me reasons by the bucket full to buy the purdy new Glock .45 I’ve been drooling over for years.

    Ugh. Don’t get a Glock, they’re overrated and overpriced. If you’re going to spend that kind of money get a Sig Sauer P220. If you want to spend less money and still have the accuracy and ruggedness of a Glock get a Ruger P90D, the “brick with a trigger”.

  22. 22.

    SpotWeld

    Oh yeah, Law and Order is going to be all over this “ripped from the headlines” idea.

    A banker who is not only convinced that people hate him, but his company’s private security and the local police are also going to abandon him.

    That’s not swagger.. that’s ego and crippling self doubt.

    That’s Ace Rimmer syndrome right there

  23. 23.

    cyntax

    @gizmo:

    If they can’t properly assess the huge risk that they exposed everyone to…

    I dunno, looks like they assessed the risk just fine and made sure to pawn it off on us.

  25. 25.

    chuck

    @beltane:

    Last time that happened, it just took a few suggestions to turn that angry mob against the ethnic group highly represented in banking. I don’t need to explicate that any further, do I?

  27. 27.

    Comrade Dread

    It has been a while since we had bomb-throwing anarchists going after the rich and connected. While I would not consider it to be a good thing to see such violence, I would certainly expect it in a society where people have their livelihoods destroyed, their health insurance cut off, and their children dying in foreign wars after joining the armed forces under financial duress.

    You don’t see it because the cops are better armed and organized and they are still inclined to defend the modern robber barons, and because most of us sane types aren’t inclined to murder someone, be it for religious or moral reasons.

    I’d be satisfied if they were put in the pillory and subjected to ass kicking and rotten fruit throwing for the remainder of their days. Or making them live under a bridge for a few years.

  28. 28.

    RSA

    While I would not consider it to be a good thing to see such violence, I would certainly expect it in a society where people have their livelihoods destroyed, their health insurance cut off, and their children dying in foreign wars after joining the armed forces under financial duress.

    I used to argue with right wingers, usually libertarians, about the disparate penalties we have for white collar crimes versus violent crimes. I mean, at some point, doesn’t the misery that an unscrupulous banker might bring to thousands of people (some of them near the end of their lives, without a lot of time to start over again) approach the misery that a murder results in? Sure, it’s property versus person, but still…

  29. 29.

    Betsy

    @chuck:
    I was *just* about to say the same thing, in reference to that comment. It chilled my blood reading it, actually.

  30. 30.

    Silver Owl

    Yep, being respectable, reputable professional people rather con artists is probably the best way to go.

    All the individuals and families they put in jeopardy and shoved into poverty just because they had to act like inbred royalty is mind blowing. Then to get their former employees to screw the people again via the bailouts while not even changing their behavior, they seem to be begging for their Marie Antoinette moment. I’m not getting their surprise. They worked for their status as it is.

    Too bad Goldman Sachs couldn’t buy a hell of an investment in common sense. They sure could use it.

  31. 31.

    celticdragon

    @beltane:

    I hate to break it to these a-holes, but a pistol is no match against an angry, well-armed mob, or even a not so well armed mob.

    Heh! If I decided to go “Bastille Day” against the bankers, I’d be using a .30-06 with a decent scope and match grade ammo from 500 yards away.

    Let’s see how effective that Glock is with that scenario…

  33. 33.

    b-psycho

    @RSA:

    I used to argue with right wingers, usually libertarians, about the disparate penalties we have for white collar crimes versus violent crimes. I mean, at some point, doesn’t the misery that an unscrupulous banker might bring to thousands of people (some of them near the end of their lives, without a lot of time to start over again) approach the misery that a murder results in?

    It does. Problem is, as a society we’ve taken the old saying about one death being a tragedy while a million are a statistic & swapped the people for dollar amounts.

  34. 34.

    liberal

    @RSA:

    I mean, at some point, doesn’t the misery that an unscrupulous banker might bring to thousands of people (some of them near the end of their lives, without a lot of time to start over again) approach the misery that a murder results in?

    The cost/benefit calculations where a human life is priced in the low $1M are all over the place.

    Re white collar crime, I don’t understand why this isn’t reversed: a bankster that causes $10M in damages should receive punishment equivalent to having murdered 10 people, if the going price of a life is $1M.

  35. 35.

    RareSanity

    “Banksta, banksta! That’s what they yellin…”
    “It’s not about reality, it’s all about a salary…”

    NWA, right?

    At least I hope you went old skool on them fools DougJ…

  37. 37.

    TenguPhule

    But a pistol isn’t going to do much against a guy armed with one of in .308 Winchester or .300 Winchester Magnum and a decent scope sniping at you from a position 500 yards away.

    Car bombs are cheaper and less apt to hurt someone who doesn’t deserve it.

    Also, makes the alibi much better.

  40. 40.

    Glocksman

    I’m generally pro-gun rights, but the egalitarian streak in me says ‘STFU and die’ to the idea of those assholes being able to legally carry while those who are under real risk of being attacked cannot get a permit because of NYS’s fucked up ‘shall issue’ gun laws.

    Indiana is backwards in a lot of respects and I won’t ever vote for Mitch Daniels, but the gun law reforms he signed into law are along with I-69, the only things he’s done that I support.

    In case you haven’t guessed, the only way I’d ever support Michael Bloomberg for any office would be at literal gunpoint.

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